Give the duo in charge of Seattle’s Capitol Hill Comedy Bar credit.
Jes Anderson and Dane Hesseldahl appeared on “Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table” this week to defend their decision to “un-book” four comedians.
The show is co-hosted by Noam Dworman, owner of New York’s Comedy Cellar and a staunch free speech advocate.
Anderson and Hesseldahl should have known Dworman would be tough on them, and he was. In the process. the podcaster revealed plenty about the situation and showed the two have plenty to learn about free speech and comic history.
I interviewed the bookers of the Seattle club that cancelled @kurtmetzger , @ComicDaveSmith , @Mrjimflorentine and @luisjgomez
I gave them a hard time, but in the end I felt a little bad I did. I don't at all agree with what they did, but I have some sympathy for their…
— Noam Dworman (@noam_dworman) March 2, 2024
The Seattle comedy club owners, both aspiring stand-ups, defended the decision to cancel gigs by Kurt Metzger, Dave Smith, Jim Florentine and Luis J. Gomez as business-related. Their customer base would punish them for having unwoke comics at the club, they said over and over.
Their business model relies heavily on local patrons, and that hard-Left base would flee if one of the aforementioned comics told jokes there.
It’s debatable, of course.
The woke mob is intimidating, but its power is often inflated. Would enough club patrons truly refuse to attend future shows because the Seattle comedy club hired one comic who didn’t toe the woke line, let alone four?
Anderson explained why she booked the four in the first place, saying she was a “fan” of Metzger from his days on “Chelsea Lately.” Plus, Metzger’s management had ties to the other three performers. Only when the club’s “investors” told her about their “problematic” jokes did she regret the decision.
Dworman pressed the owners again and again to share what the four comedians had said to warrent their cancellation. What joke, what routine was so hurtful that her progressive fans couldn’t be exposed to it?
They couldn’t.
Dworman discussed why edgy comedians are important to the culture, and how difficult conversations can often lead to progressive victories.
Think gay marriage, for starters.
He also brought up a ’70s era advertisement for Richard Pryor, noting how the comedy legend was billed as “harsh, vulgar, shocking, offensive” at the time.
“This was how things were marketed to liberal people,” Dworman said. Would Capitol Hill Comedy Bar turn Pryor away?
Dworman suggested it would.
He also challenged them on part of the letter they sent to Metzger’s agent upon canceling his gig.
We truly value the art of comedy and the diverse perspectives it brings to our lives.
They couldn’t offer a cogent explanation.
The podcaster then highlighted a key problem with today’s woke warriors. The purity tests are insufferable.
“[Progressives] feel they have a say in not just what they see but what you should be doing when they’re not there,” Dworman said. “It’s like the personal is political, like Communism. The way you live has to be pristine, the way you book, the way you speak … it’s your whole way of life that you’re gonna judge.”
The owners partially played the victim. The podcast played angry voice messages left on their business phone tied to the cancellations to back up their claims.
Imagine the hate that would have erupted had the four comedians played the club as intended?
Seattle Comedy … An Oxymoron?
They also complained that Metzger targeted Anderson on “The Jimmy Dore Show” and said she should be ridiculed for making the cancelations.
The duo made a few smart points in the conversation.
“There’s a big difference between saying a book should be banned and I don’t want a book in my home,” Hesseldahl said. “We’re scared. We got a bomb threat yesterday.”
Dworman showed sympathy for the duo, but he couldn’t let them go without sharing his thoughts on the responsibilities that come with comedy club ownership.
“You’re obviously nice people, well-intentioned people. You’re in an industry that is about free expression. You’re in an industry that has a history of having landmark incidents regarding free expression that affect the culture. So you chose that industry. You don’t have to live up to that calling … but it’s not like you opened a deli and you found yourself in this.
“You’re becoming a cousin, and you’re nice people and you don’t wanna be, of the people smashing the windows,” Dworman said, noting a recent incident at Berkeley where violent protesters raged against Jewish speakers.
“They started smashing the place up. This is a close cousin of the sentiment that you’re buckling to,” he said. “I can’t sign off on it because it’s wrong. It’s leading the country down a terrible direction with everybody fueled by their certainty that their position is the right one, so right that no one else should even be platformed. And I will smash up Berkeley, and I will riot outside the Comedy Cellar and I will put this comedy club out of business if they should have the nerve, not to endorse a view I do not like, but simply allow that view to be heard.”
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